Call Me Ishmael
by Asher J
Summary: The thoughts of one of the Cygnus' crew leading up to the events from the movie and the ship's final moments.
1. Chapter 1

_**CALL ME ISHMAEL**_

 **CHAPTER 1**

We were tired. All of us were just too damn tired.

We'd been galloping through the universe on the U.S.S. _Cygnus_ for what seemed like forever. Our mission, like that of many other spaceships, was to discover habitable life in outer space. In the beginning, it felt like a great adventure, and our captain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt, seemed perfectly normal. Some people—like Dr. Frank McCrae, our second-in-command and Dr. Reinhardt's closest friend—called him a genius, and others said he was a little out there. But then again, what scientist isn't "a little out there"?

We all wanted to go. I know I did. All my life, I was more than a little convinced that there were other worlds out there, and I'd always dreamed of traveling through space and making those discoveries.

If only I'd known then what I know now.

It was 20 years ago, but I'll never forget the day the _Cygnus_ was recalled to Earth and our mission was declared a failure. Don't get me wrong, I was disappointed, as were my shipmates and Dr. McCrae, but nobody took the news harder than Dr. Reinhardt. We always knew he wasn't the kind of guy who took no for an answer so easily, and that all this time in space was taking its toll on him, but not one of us thought he'd go over the edge the way he did.

If you were to ask anyone on board what the one thing was that made Dr. Reinhardt go off the deep end, they will tell you—without hesitation—that it was the day he discovered the black hole. To him, it was pay dirt: all those years of space travel had finally paid off. When he first saw that gigantic, swirling, bluish-purple mass, he thought he'd hit the jackpot. Even though he was well aware that nothing can escape a black hole, not even light, he wasn't afraid. After all, the _Cygnus_ had the anti-gravity fields to hold us in place and prevent us from being sucked in.

To us, it was the perfect metaphor for just how far gone our trusted leader had become. In fact, he even made Captain Ahab, the main character in Herman Melville's _Moby Dick,_ look like a sane and rational person.

Which is why it didn't surprise any of us when he ignored the order to return to Earth.

I still remember what happened next, and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. I'd just finished my shift in the _Cygnus'_ control tower and was on my way to my room for some much-needed shut-eye when I heard a loud ruckus coming from inside Dr. Reinhardt's quarters. When I made my way outside his door, Old Bob, this little robot from the storage and maintenance department, zipped out and almost collided with me. He said Dr. Reinhardt and Dr. McCrae were really going at it in there, and there was no mistaking the panic in his voice.

All of a sudden, I heard an ear-splitting, gut-wrenching scream. It was Dr. McCrae. I knew deep down what had happened, but against my better judgment, I made a beeline for the door to see for myself. It's a damn good thing Bob stopped me from doing so, because if he hadn't, there's no question that I would've been dead, too.

Had I known what would soon be in store for my fellow crewmen and me, I would've much rather preferred death.

At any rate, Bob and I knew what we had to do. And after what I'd just heard, there was no way in hell I would get any sleep now.

We ran to the crew's quarters, woke up everyone we could, and told them what happened. Part of me almost expected them to tell us we were crazy, that it couldn't possibly be true, and that all that time away from home was just playing tricks on our minds. But much to my surprise—and, as sick as this may sound, my relief—they believed us. In retrospect, I think they too were expecting something like this to go down.

Bob and I gave them specific instructions not to tell anyone on the night shift what we'd just told them, get all the necessary previsions they could carry, and get to the escape pods immediately, the reason being that they were programmed to head for Earth in case of an emergency—which it obviously was. After all, if you were just told that your captain had gone stark raving mad, wouldn't your first instinct be to get the hell out of Dodge?

No sooner had the last our shipmates blasted off—I don't even know how many made it out of there, nor did I stop to count—did the door to the pod bay slide open in a nanosecond, and in marched the sentry robots, along with Maximilian (or Max, as we called him), the head robot on board and Dr. Reinhardt's mech-anical version of Frankenstein's monster. That big red bucket of bolts never spoke, but he was obviously pissed. Poor Bob was shaking like a Chihuahua in a blizzard. He knew we were in big trouble. It's a wonder he didn't fly apart into a million pieces right on the spot. That's how scared he was.

Max and the sentries surrounded us, marched us out the door, and made their way down the hallway of the crew's quarters. As Bob and I watched in horror, the sentries barged into each room and yanked the crewmen out of bed. Those who refused to comply were killed execution-style right in front of us. It was something right out of Nazi Germany.

During the carnage, I thought of my shipmates who were lucky enough to make it off the _Cygnus_ with their lives, and prayed to God that they'd make it home and spread the word to the authorities about what was going down. I also wondered how long it would be before anyone on the night shift would realize how much danger they were in, and hoped they would escape in time as well.

Tragically, they never got a chance to do either.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

I never liked hospitals. Even as a kid, if I could list all the places I hated going to, hospitals would be at the very top of that list. The constant hustle and bustle, the smells, the equipment—that's not for me. Not to mention knowing that people have died in those God-forsaken places. I don't about you, but I personally can do without that kind of stuff.

Now I have another reason to hate them.

The _Cygnus_ was built with a very state-of-the-art medical center, and I mean VERY state-of-the-art. In just a matter of seconds, this facility could cure diseases that, once upon a time, were very serious and possibly fatal. And with all that time in space, it's a damn good thing that medical science had evolved so much.

Well, when we were marched into the ship's medical center, it was not for healing purposes.

I watched the sentries round up the medical staff and herd them into every corner of the room like cattle. As they were held at gunpoint, the rest of us were lined up and ushered over to the operating tables. They were basically giant circular conveyer-belt looking things that could treat six patients at a time. But on this day, this equipment that saved so many lives, healed so many injuries and cured so many diseases was now going to be used as instruments of inhumane torture, mind control, and the inflicting of horrible, excruciating pain.

My shipmates' screams of agony and pleadings for mercy rang in my ears as the laser beams drilled into their foreheads. I knew what was happening to them: their memories, their emotions, and their wills—in other words, their humanity—were being permanently erased. Think of the ancient practice of giving a violent, combative patient a full frontal lobotomy. These atrocities that were going on before us were no different than that cruel, barbaric procedure. A lot less messy, perhaps, but the same results nonetheless: no free will, no motivation to fight back against those who were mistreating you, and no choice but to obey everything you were told to do.

In other words, you are a zombie.

While I stood in line and waited for what was to come, one of the crewmen tapped me on the shoulder and whispered that there was a way to withstand the torture. He told me that, according to Bob, the best way to maintain your memories was to think of all your past experiences and any other information you've obtained over the years, but only to start the instant the lasers hit.

I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but I did know that in just a matter of minutes, I and five others would be on that table. My panic level was off the charts by this point. I thought of making a break for it, but I knew I'd never make it out of there. We were completely surrounded and outnumbered. On the other hand, though, death would've been a helluva lot more preferable than this.

Next thing I knew, two sentries grabbed me and slammed me back-first onto the table. There were six of us, and I was lying between two other crew-men, my head right at my shipmate's feet. We were like human sardines.

On the upside, I wouldn't be the first one in my group to be lobotomized.

As the conveyer belt moved me underneath the lasers, I prepared myself to do what my shipmate said to do. The last thing I saw before squeezing my eyes shut was the lasers powering up. This was it. This was going to hurt like hell, and my only alternative was to disassociate myself from the mind-erasing agony that made the torture methods used during the Spanish Inquisition look blissful.

A million thoughts went through me as the lasers bore down right between my eyes. My childhood in the mountains of Oregon. Seeing my baby sister for the first time when I was five. The projects that won me my blue ribbons at the annual grade school science fair. My high school graduation. My acceptance letter from MIT. My days at space camp. As I reminisced about those happy times, I also started mentally reciting any and every piece of scientific and literary in-formation I could think of: the formulas of Einstein, Bible verses, Newton's laws of physics, Shakespeare, even the songs from Mozart's _The Magic Flute._ Those bastards would have my obedience, but I'd be damned if I'd let them have my memories of what was happening. Even if I was subjected to this indignation day after day for the rest of my life, there was no way I'd forget any of this. Sure, I'd be an empty, emotionless shell of the man I was, but I wasn't about to completely give up without a fight.

And then, just a few seconds later, it was all over. I opened my eyes, and everything was a big blur. I was dizzy, my head was pounding like a jackhammer, and my whole face was numb. It was like it wasn't even there. A sentry grabbed my arm, pulled me up and guided me off the table. If it wasn't for these horrific circumstances, I would've grabbed that mechanical SOB's gun and blown his head clean off. Obviously wishful thinking, because I couldn't even feel my arms.

I dared to catch a glimpse of myself in a passing mirror as I was led out of the hospital. In the center of my forehead, there was a black burn mark that was roughly the size of an almond, and my eyes looked dull, puffy and cloudy. I barely recognized that man in the mirror staring back at me. All the emotion and life was now erased, just as thoroughly as one would erase their handwriting from a dry-erase board. All that remained was just an empty body, condemned to a life of an unwilling automaton.

I knew damn well what the others must've been thinking as they were made into flesh-and-blood robots. They didn't deserve to be treated this way. None of us did.

We didn't want this.

All we wanted was to explore the farthest reaches of space, not be enslaved by a madman. We were supposed to expand our minds and better ourselves, not be subjected to a fate worse than death.

On the way down the hall, I remembered how Dr. Reinhardt used to tell us that the end justifies the means. How the hell could we have known that his wish to fulfill his greatest achievement would be at the expense of our own lives?


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

It was now 20 years later. 20 long, endless, monotonous, agonizing years.

Nothing but work, listening to Dr. Reinhardt's constant obsession with the black hole, and that so-called "medical treatment" if we thought for ourselves or refused to cater to his every whim. Not surprisingly, more than some of the crewmen couldn't take it anymore. Rather than spend the rest of their lives en-during this hellish existence for one more day, they actually looked forward to dying someday and finally being free. I couldn't really blame them. Even though I was no longer a man with his own free will, among other things, I knew damn well how they were feeling. I was well aware that the size of the crew was getting a little smaller each day. Some died because of complications from the lobotomizing, and others committed suicide. More and more, I believed that most of my shipmates had chosen the latter.

The only thing that kept me going was doing what Bob suggested on the day I was lobotomized: focusing on my happy memories and all my knowledge of science and literature. Furthermore, if certain events hadn't come to pass, I can quite honestly say that I would've done so myself.

It was yet another day in the _Cygnus'_ control tower. I was sitting at my usual post when I noticed a signal on the radar. It was another ship, much smaller than ours. According to the computer, this ship—later identified as the U.S.S. _Palomino—_ wason its way back to Earth when they'd discovered us and the black hole. Besides wondering who was on board, I also knew they were in danger, especially when they almost got sucked in. Luckily, they escaped, but their ship was damaged in the process. Okay—obviously, they needed to dock so they could make the repairs, but in the back of my mind, I was praying they'd leave and be saved from our fate.

Well, no such luck. About half an hour later, I heard the elevator doors open. The next thing I heard was a woman's voice identifying herself as Kate McCrae.

 _McCrae._

Yes, of course. Dr. McCrae's daughter. I wondered what she looked like. She was probably beautiful. God, if only Dr. McCrae were still here. He could tell his daughter everything that happened. He could warn her that Dr. Reinhardt had gone completely crazy. He could tell her that she and the _Palomino_ crew had to get the hell away from here and tell the people of Earth what had become of us.

No, that wouldn't have made any difference. If anything, Dr. Reinhardt would've killed him right in front of his daughter and her shipmates, and then they all would've been turned into zombies. As cruel as this sounds, part of me was actually glad he wasn't here to see this.

I was busy with my duties, but I did overhear some of the conversation that Dr. Reinhardt was having with the _Palomino_ crew. He was polite and cordial, but you didn't need a PhD to know that he knew the jig was up. On the upside, he did have the common courtesy to allow these folks to stay long enough to fix their ship, although he was really hiding from them just how crazy he really was.

If you ask me, I think the captain had that gut-feeling that something wasn't right. The ship's journalist—Booth was his name, if I recall—sure as hell had his suspicions. It's a wonder he didn't just blurt it out right then and there. The only one who didn't think anything was out of the ordinary was the _Palomino's_ other scientist, Dr. Durant. For him, meeting Dr. Reinhardt was like meeting royalty.

The poor schmuck.

It was around the time that the _Palomino_ was preparing for lift-off that it all started to unravel. I was still at my post, but I was no longer focused on my work. I was listening to Dr. McCrae pleading with her friend and colleague to come with her. Their shipmates couldn't wait for them any longer. Dr. Reinhardt was preparing to finally make that journey into the black hole. If he was going through, so were they, and he'd be damned if any of them were going anywhere now.

Dr. Durant insisted he was staying, and that's when she finally told him the truth about Dr. Reinhardt, her father, my shipmates, and me, everything. Personally, I think she should've just said the hell with this and left on her own. That way, Max wouldn't have killed Dr. Durant, the sentries wouldn't have captured her, and Dr. Reinhardt could've just let them leave without a fight.

It was like the worm in the apple: no matter how deep it's buried inside, it was going to come out no matter what.

Once Max killed that poor scientist, that was it. And when Dr. McCrae said the black hole would be Dr. Reinhardt's grave, I couldn't have agreed with her more. However, there are two things I could've done without. One was the _Palomino_ being shot down and crashing into us. Thankfully, the crew was not on board when that took place. I knew, because I saw three of them on the security monitor, as well as Bob and a robot that looked exactly like him, only in much better shape. I felt so sorry for those people. Without their ship, they were really up the creek without a paddle. There was also the meteor storm. It was bad enough that Dr. Reinhardt had passed the point of no return and that the _Cygnus_ had taken some serious damage when it got hit (specifically, the loss of both anti-gravity fields), but this was the last thing we needed, and I'm sure my shipmates felt the same way. If there was any consolation, it was the thought of Dr. Reinhardt being done in by the very thing he pursued so obsessively and relentlessly. That, right there, was the best-tasting piece of karma pie we could've possibly asked for.

As the _Cygnus_ was making its final descent into the black hole, I heard Dr. Reinhardt order Max to get the probe ship ready. I can't say I wasn't both surprised and disgusted that he was leaving us here to die, as opposed to going down with the ship. Not only was he a madman, he was also a gutless coward.

Damn him. Damn that crazy bastard straight to hell.

Apparently, someone from above had other ideas, because the next thing I heard was a huge crash, and Dr. Reinhardt screaming. I turned around just a hair, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see him pinned down underneath one of the giant astroscreens. Right beside me, another crewman did the same. I think we both knew there was no way we could lift that screen off of him. It must've weighed half a ton or more. But instead of helping, we just turned our attention back to what we were doing. We knew this was the end. And in a way, it was what we'd spent 20 years hoping for, longing for. It was finally over. And besides, why should we waste our final moments on the very man who'd put us in this position in the first place? He didn't deserve our help now.

The explosions that were happening all over the ship and those loud, blaring alarms were the most beautiful sounds in the whole damn universe. Anyone else in a situation like this would be scared out of their minds, but to us, it was our way out. After all we'd endured, this was our salvation.

 _Au revoir, mes camarades._ It's been an honor and a pleasure working with you, and may God bless you all. Give my best to Dr. McCrae, the one man in this nightmare who was our rock, our confidant, and our friend. Wherever we're going now, we'll finally be free.

 **THE END**


End file.
